Revisiting the Drama of the Longest Day
THERE is a reason why television has become so obsessed with the 60th anniversary of D-Day（行动开始预定日的缩写，这里指诺曼底登陆日）。 It is not just gratitude， nor is it solely envy of a generation that ①waged war with unflinching（adj.不畏惧的， 坚定的） moral certainty.
Viewers are also streaming their own recollections of World War II as they first experienced it on television， watching series and documentaries that marked American childhoods just as as much as the polio vaccine（牛痘苗；疫苗）， the Beatles or “Sesame Street.”（芝麻街，美国流行的一档电视节目）
In Europe and Russia， even people born long after 1945 grew up surrounded by tangible（adj.切实的） evidence of the war ― spending summers sunbathing on top of cement German bunkers（n碉堡） on the beaches of Normandy， making school field trips to Nazi concentration camps or walking past bombed-out city blocks in Stalingrad. Most American viewers knew the war only through movies and television； for many children， “Hogan's Heroes” （一部70年代的电视连续剧，讲美军战俘霍甘等人在集中营智斗德军的故事。）was the gateway drug to a lifetime fascination with World War II.
D-Day will be revisited， recreated and re-examined almost incessantly this Sunday， most intensely on specials that range from “D-Day： A Leap Into History，” with Tom Brokaw as the host on “Dateline NBC（National Broadcasting Company国家广播公司），” to a PBS（Public Broadcasting Service公共广播公司） rebroadcast of “D-Day Plus 20 Years： A CBS Reports，” a 1964 interview that Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the CBS（哥伦比亚广播公司Columbia Broadcasting System） correspondent Walter Cronkite as the two men strolled through Normandy battle sites and graveyards. But almost every network will have some kind of tribute to the longest day.
②Repetition， and perhaps even overkill， is inevitable and forgivable. The storming of the beaches of Normandy was the largest invasion in history， an all-day battle with mythic measures of death and logistics. And World War II was the country's last moment of enduring social consensus， the great rock upon which we built our sense of righteousness（n.正当， 正义， 正直） for the latter half of the 20th century； even the few days and weeks after Sept. 11 do not come close.
And no matter how many times they are shown and reshown， these wartime newsreels（n. 新闻影片）， archival（adj. 关于档案的） films， iconic photographs and interviews with veterans（n. 老兵） or frail French residents of Ste.-Mère-église tug at the memories of younger generations who tasted that cohesion secondhand， on television.
For the first wave of ③baby boomers “Victory at Sea，” a 26-part World War II documentary first shown on NBC in 1952 （it was reshown in the early 60's and is now on DVD）， provided a mesmerizing（施催眠术） introduction to a war that their parents were eager to put behind them. Each half-hour installment wove together wartime film clips from American， British， Japanese and German archives to recreate major campaigns at sea： the attack on Pearl Harbor， the Battle of Midway and， of course， the amphibious（adj. 两栖的） landing at Normandy. Viewers still remember the documentary's lush， stirring score by Richard Rodgers， even if they long ago forgot the stentorian（adj. 声音洪亮的） narration. （“It is September 1939. War has begun. Ships are sinking； men are dying.”）
Their children fell under the spell of “The World at War，” an astonishingly comprehensive and authoritative 1974 British documentary series that mixed archival material， newsreels and radio announcements with color film interviews with such witnesses as Anthony Eden； Albert Speer； Lord Mountbatten； a Hiroshima survivor， Hiroko Nakamoto； and Dwight D. Eisenhower's wartime driver and companion， Kay Summersby. Laurence Olivier was the narrator.
The series， also on DVD， contrasted coolly understated reminiscences（n. 回想， 记忆力， 怀旧） by generals and admirals（n.海军上将） with historic， spine-tingling（adj. 令人又惊又喜的，令人激动的） clips， including an audio recording of Winston Churchill speaking in gruff French over the radio to a defeated France （“Good night then： Sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly it will shine on the brave and true， kindly upon all who suffer for the cause， glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn”）。
In an era when World War II battles， lore and gore can be grazed on or breezed through on the History Channel at any time of day or night， documentaries have lost some of their hold on younger viewers. In 2001 the spark was rekindled（v. 重新点燃） by “Band of Brothers，” Tom Hanks's 10-part HBO mini-series based on Stephen E. Ambrose's nonfiction（n. 非小说的散文文学） account of an Army rifle company that parachuted into France on D-Day and fought in the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of the Netherlands. For war buffs， the HBO version was a truer， smarter interpretation（n.解释， 阐明） of D-Day than the grandiose， overly sentimental “Saving Private Ryan.”Both works， however， were epics that etched（v. 蚀刻） themselves deep into young imaginations. （“Band of Brothers” is being shown again on the History Channel； on Monday， Easy Company will engage in the battle of Foy.）
None of the specials that were created to commemorate the 60th anniversary come close to the depth and breadth of those landmark television events. Instead， the choices are vast. Mr. Brokaw's special on “Dateline” narrows in on the tale of paratroopers（n. 伞兵） who were dropped miles off course into flooded marshes and had to fight the Germans on their own ― with help from French teenagers and priests.
The Discovery Channel's “D-Day： Reflections of Courage” somewhat disconcertingly mixes interviews and archival film with hokey（adj. 虚情假意的， 做作的） re-enactments（重新制定）： Robert Capa dancing cheek to cheek with a sultry（adj. 放荡的） English beauty in London or Rommel touring the Atlantic wall and explaining to an aide that he is off to Paris to buy shoes for his wife's 50th birthday on June 6. He was in Berlin when the invasion of Normandy began.
The History Channel's version， “10 Days to D-Day，” does the same thing， but less obtrusively（adv.冒失地， 莽撞地） and more effectively： ordinary veterans talk about their experiences that day， and then re-enactments recreate the drama in flashback（n. 倒叙） form.
CNN on Sunday will celebrate D-Day valor as much as any of the other cable news networks， but it will also find time to remind its viewers that World War II started in 1939 in Poland， not after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.
“Warsaw Rising” is a documentary about a far less glorious episode in the war to liberate Europe. Anticipating support from the Red Army and the Allies， the Warsaw underground on Aug. 1， 1944， led a rebellion against the Nazis. Stalin refused to advance troops to help a Polish resistance that was not in league with Moscow-backed Communists and blocked British and American airlifts（n.空运）； Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt did not press the matter. The Poles fought alone for 63 days and lost 200，000 people.
For those who prefer an unclouded look back（回顾，追忆）， “D-Day Plus 20 Years” is a remarkable document： Eisenhower talks on and on to Mr. Cronkite in his somewhat rambling（adj.漫步的， 散漫的， 流浪性的）， understated way about the invasion （“That first day was a tough one”）， explaining logistics， talking about his men and senior officers. （One was “④一个很棒的小伙子” But some of the best moments have nothing to do with words： as he walks up the beach with Mr. Cronkite at his side， a gaggle（n. 鹅群， 一群）of schoolchildren， led by nuns in large white wimples， pass in front of the former Allied supreme commander. He says hello and beams at them with rueful（adj. 悲哀的，沮丧的） delight.
“If the G.I.'s（军用品） of 20 years ago could have seen that，” he says to Mr. Cronkite， shaking his head， “that would have been something.”
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